IS THE NEXT ICE-AGE ALREADY UNDERWAY?

The geological record certainly tells us we are overdue for one. And 5,000 years ago the Sahara was green, which is what happens in warm periods, as warmer seas give off more evaporation to fall as rain. Deserts are a feature of ice ages. Article below by Pierre Jutras

Carbon dioxide has been given a bad rap. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol identified carbon dioxide emissions and their effect on global climate as the main environmental threat to tackle. Environmental activists, such as Greenpeace, are also putting most of their energy into defeating the same beast. From a geologist's perspective, however, this could be seen as an interesting paradox. To help explain, here are a few common misconceptions about carbon dioxide and global warming.

1. Carbon dioxide is a pollutant.

Nothing could be further from the truth. It is, in fact, the "greenest" gas in our atmosphere, and the most essential ingredient for life itself. It has no odour, no colour and no ill effects whatsoever. All it does is nourish life and keep our climate warm. It is the primary and most essential nutrient at the very base of the food chain, as photosynthetic plants, algae and bacteria remove it from the atmosphere and hydrosphere to store it in their tissues. Along with water vapour, it keeps our planet away from the temperature extremes experienced daily by planetary bodies that are devoid of it, such as our own moon.

2. A lot of the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere originally came from fossil fuels.

This is also not true. All the carbon that is stored in fossil fuels originally came from the atmosphere and hydrosphere before being stored in organic tissues and carbonate rocks. If there were no processes for sending some of this carbon back to the atmosphere and hydrosphere, the latter reservoirs would long ago have been depleted in carbon due to organic activity, and life would have eventually ceased to exist.

3. High atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are bad for ecosystems.

During life's long history, carbon dioxide levels have been continuously fluctuating, causing alternating periods of global warming (greenhouse ages) and global cooling (ice ages). During greenhouse ages, which are characterized by carbon dioxide levels several times higher than today's, life goes through tremendous expansion and diversification, whereas periods of low carbon dioxide levels, such as today's, are affected by severe extinctions.

4. Global warming will force deserts to increase in size.

The geological record says otherwise, as greenhouse ages are characterized by an absence or quasi-absence of desertic conditions, which are a feature of ice ages.

5. Global warming will cause hurricanes and other atmospheric turbulences to increase in energy and frequency.

Because hurricanes are caused by steep gradients in atmospheric pressure, and therefore temperature, this is very unlikely. A greenhouse Earth is characterized by moist and temperate conditions from the poles to the equator, with a much less significant latitudinal gradient in temperature than exists today.

6. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have never been so high.

In fact, on a geological time scale, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have hardly ever been so low, and ecosystems are suffering greatly because of that. The last time carbon dioxide levels were so low, near the end of the Paleozoic era (about 250 million years ago), the Earth's biosphere went through its greatest extinction, as 90 per cent of Paleozoic species were gone by the beginning of the Mesozoic era (age of the dinosaurs). The last time that life went through a major expansion and diversification was during the Cretaceous period (135 million to 65 million years ago), when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were more than six times those of today. Moreover, when life first started, around 3.8 billion years ago, carbon dioxide levels were hundreds of times higher than today's. Since then, most of the original carbon dioxide content of Earth's primitive atmosphere has been stored in carbonate rocks, coal, oil and gas.

7. We are now in a period of global warming.

This is only true on a short time scale, such as the past 500 years or so. It is already not true at the scale of 5,000 years, when Earth's climate was considerably warmer, and it is certainly not true at the scale of five million years, which takes us out of the current ice age. The main control on large-scale carbon dioxide fluctuations, which ultimately control climatic fluctuations, is plate tectonics. When global plate tectonics are dominated by continental collisions, leading to the formation of supercontinents, the erosional rates of calcium and magnesium from continental crust increase. This leads to an increase in carbonate deposition (limestone and dolostone), which forms the main long-term storage of carbon away from the atmosphere.

Due to this, the formation of the four supercontinents in Earth's history (Arctica, Rodinia, Pangea and today's "Afrikeurasia") was synchronous with the four major ice ages (Eoarchean, Eoproterozoic, late Paleozoic and Quaternary). When plate tectonics are dominated by continental drift, limy sediments are recycled into the Earth's mantle, and much of their carbon content is then sent back to the atmosphere via volcanism. These are times of high carbon dioxide levels, global warming, and life expansion and diversification.

We are now in the middle of the fourth ice age, and biodiversity has been shrinking very rapidly over the past two million years (i.e. since long before the time when anthropogenic activities became meaningful).

Due to orbital cycles, ice ages are affected by regular, second-order climatic fluctuations. We have gone through warm peaks for the three main types of orbital cycles over the past 5,000 years, and all these cycles are now on a cooling trend. It is predicted that ice sheets will start forming again in mid-latitudes in about 3,000 years, and that half of North America and Europe will be covered by kilometres of ice in 5,000 years. Hence, the present warming trend is just a small notch in an otherwise cooling trend.

In a nutshell, we are putting a lot of energy into preventing global warming, whereas the threat of global cooling should perhaps be our main concern. Who knows, maybe one day we will burn fossil fuels for the sole purpose of preventing global cooling. Geological history has proven that ecosystems thrive better with a higher carbon dioxide budget. Yet, we are trying really hard to keep them in their present state of starvation.

Is the current trend of global warming a good thing? Not necessarily. There are two sides to every coin. If there are winners, there are bound to be losers, too. For example, polar bears would have to drastically change their lifestyle on a greenhouse Earth.

We need, therefore, to better evaluate the general outcome of global cooling versus status quo, and versus global warming, before making drastic moves such as the Kyoto Protocol. The geological record states quite clearly that global warming is best for ecosystems in general, but what about humans specifically?

Because we rely so much on agricultural production, chances are that mostly good would come from global warming, as it would increase agricultural productivity in mid to high latitudes.

Yet, one major concern that remains is the rate of temperature increase. Changes that are too rapid can be harmful to ecosystems, even if they head in the right direction. However, it is the tendency of humanity to look at any change as intrinsically bad. There is this ingrained biblical attitude and belief that the Earth was a static Garden of Eden before humans came to mess it up. In fact, the Earth is always changing, has always been changing, and always will be changing. It is better to adapt to changes and try to mould them to our benefit, than to hopelessly try to maintain things in a static state.

For mankind, the main ill effect of global warming is the accompanying rise in sea level that is caused by the gradual melting and shrinking of the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets. The transition from an ice age to a greenhouse age forces ecosystems to migrate inland and toward higher latitudes. If the rate is reasonable, they do this effortlessly.

However, this would cause major civil engineering problems for concrete monsters such as New York City, which cannot migrate as readily. This is, of course, a major concern and the main reason why decision makers usually view environmental changes as negative. For example, billions of dollars have been spent on trying to stabilize the Mississippi Delta, a naturally unstable system, just to make sure that cities like New Orleans maintain a controlled waterway and do not find themselves, instead, in the path of this continuously shifting waterway. When the people of Greenpeace rail against global warming, are they really concerned with the future of these concrete monsters? Is the global warming problem really a "green" concern?

I offer this message to environmentalists: Please, leave the carbon dioxide and global warming problem to urban and economic planners, and deal with real atmospheric pollutants instead, such as carbon monoxide, aerosols, chlorofluorocarbons, tropospheric ozone, volatile organic compounds and sulphur oxides.

Source

Pierre Jutras is an associate professor of geology at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Canada.







BRITAIN'S "DROUGHT"

Severe flood warnings were the order of the day in Scotland yesterday as more than 40 days of gales and rain showed little sign of letting up. The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency said that there was "serious danger to life and property" from the rivers Lyon and Tay in Perthshire, and the River Teith at Callander. There were also nine flood warnings and twenty-two flood watches in place elsewhere.

Scotland has suffered the wettest November on record, and there is more bad weather to come. Worst hit has been Glasgow, which has endured the highest levels of rainfall on record since the First World War. The city recorded 342mm of rain last month, double the expected average, while Scotland was drenched by 244mm of rain, significantly higher than the average 166mm November total.

Continuing torrential downpours have already delivered 141.5mm of rain this month, about 91 per cent of the total average for December. The outlook for this week continues to be poor for the West Coast and Central Belt, with up to 40mm of rain expected in some parts. The Highlands and the Northern Isles will be hit by 80mph gales. A Met Office spokesman said: "It has rained every day in Scotland for more than 40 days and so far every day in December has brought wet weather. It's not going to get any better."

Source





GREENS DISCOVER THORIUM

The article below if from the deep-green "Independent" of London

It's a word that's been generating a steady, background hum in the scientific community for decades now. And the glow of hope emanating from the word "thorium" is now burning brighter than ever. Is this element really the nuclear fuel of the future? Is it really - as some are claiming - cleaner, greener and safer than its scarcer cousin uranium? One thing's for sure: there are massive reserves of thorium throughout the world, and if the power that represents could be harnessed, it could keep us in energy-saving light bulbs for thousands of years to come. So why aren't governments investing in the technology needed to make that potential a reality?

Over the past year, Professor Egil Lillestol of the Institute of Physics and Technology at the University of Bergen, has been attempting to convince the world that nuclear reactors fuelled by thorium could be the answer to the world's energy problems. If we accept that we need alternatives to the CO2-belching fossil fuels, then, Lillestol says: "We all have to do whatever we can to reduce the consumption of energy and to develop solar and wind energy. These are, currently, the only two sources that can give us substantial amounts of renewable energy, but unfortunately far from enough."

Lillestol believes that nuclear power is the only solution. But nuclear power has a bad reputation. The public remembers the disasters all too well, from the Sellafield fire of 1957 to Chernobyl's meltdown in 1986. We are frightened, too, by the prospect of waste from spent fuel rods that remain lethally radioactive for many thousands of years. If that's not nasty enough, some nuclear waste can also be reprocessed into weapons-grade plutonium. The processing of plutonium for re-use as fuel for reactors is difficult and consequently much of the waste is left to build in weapons-grade stockpiles that could pose a serious security threat were some to fall into the wrong hands.

But according to some, including Lillestol, thorium - a silvery white metal discovered in 1828 by the Swedish chemist Jons Jakob Berzelius, who named it after Thor, the Norse god of thunder - could solve all these problems. As Lillestol points out, thorium is "three times more abundant than uranium in the earth's crust, and produces 250 times more energy per unit of weight than uranium in the present reactors". Unlike a uranium reactor, a thorium power station would produce no plutonium. Consequently, the waste produced from burning thorium in a reactor would not be such a security risk if it fell into the wrong hands, and the spent fuel rods are dramatically less radioactive than conventional nuclear waste. Dr Paul Norman of the University of Birmingham's Physics department talks in terms of "hundreds of years of radioactivity as opposed to thousands".

Furthermore, thorium requires an accelerator-driven system (or ADS) reactor, and these have significant differences from reactors commonly used for uranium. When a uranium-235 atom splits, it releases a wave of high-energy neutrons which can then collide with other U-235 atoms, releasing more neutrons. This is the chain reaction responsible for the explosive power of an atom bomb, and when out of control, it is also the force that can drive a disastrous meltown in a reactor's core.

But in an ADS reactor, that chain reaction cannot get out of control. "The technology for building such a reactor became ripe some 10 years ago. It uses an external beam of protons to kick-start the reactions," says Lillestol. The thorium does not then continue the reaction on its own - it needs the external beam of protons to keep it running. To stop the reaction, and close down a power station, all that would be needed to be done would be to pull the plug on that external beam of protons.

"In the first step, the protons enter into molten lead where a large number of neutrons are produced," continues Lillestol. "These neutrons enter into the thorium blanket. In fact the proton accelerator has to have a rather intense proton beam, and such accelerators could not be built 10 years ago. This is no longer considered to be a major obstacle."

Lillestol says that the problem is political will - and money. "Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia began work on the ADS while he was director-general at CERN [the European Organisation for Nuclear Research]. He and his group made so much progress that we all believed that a prototype would be built within a decade. However, when the EU turned down the application for $500m first in 1999 and then in 2000, Rubbia gave up pushing and concentrated on solar energy which he then was also heavily engaged in."

Lillestol - whom Rubbia appointed as deputy division leader of CERN's Physics Division back in 1989 - has continued to fight for the thorium cause. He estimates the cost of a prototype reactor at 550m euros and believes it will take around 15 years to develop: "Molten lead becomes highly corrosive - and the problem is, how do we contain that lead? But the greatest difficulty is getting the world's experts to work together in one place and on one prototype. This, I believe, can only be achieved if all the participating countries have equal rights to all the results." Of course, the supply network for uranium has already been established, and is an important issue for governments all over the world. Switching to thorium would move the goalposts and put new power in the hands of the countries that have the thorium. And on such massive issues, it seems that no one likes change.

India, which has about a quarter of the world's total reserves, has already planned its nuclear power program eventually to use thorium, phasing out uranium. But Greenpeace thinks this is a bad idea. The organisation's senior adviser on nuclear energy, Jean McSorley, says: "Operating thorium reactors would mean taking an enormous risk with untried and untested reactors. We shouldn't forget that we need to reduce energy demand, and fully embrace clean, safe and secure alternatives such as renewable energy systems."

But Dr Norman says that new nuclear technology, of some description, is the future. "If you want evidence that nuclear power is back on the agenda, then take a look at what's happening at universities. Our Masters course on the Physics and Technology of Nuclear Reactors was launched 50 years ago, and this year we've got 36 students - the most we've ever had, almost double the previous highest number which was 19 students back in 1957. Global warming is proving far more deadly than Chernobyl. We could try and keep running with the current reactors, which will run as long as uranium-235 lasts. Or we could try something new." He agrees the something new could well be thorium. Or nuclear fusion, which, he admits, "is technically harder to achieve". Perhaps a thorium reactor is not so far-fetched.

Source




RECALCULATING THE COSTS OF GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE

The article below is from another surprising source -- the New York Times. Occasionally they let a bit of truth leak out

The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change was released Oct. 30 and became front-page news because of its striking conclusion that we should immediately invest 1 percent of world economic activity (referred to as global gross domestic product in the report) to reduce the impact of global warming. The British report warned that failing to do so could risk future economic damages equivalent to a reduction of up to 20 percent in global G.D.P.

These figures are substantially higher than earlier estimates of the costs of global warming, and environmental economists have studied the 700-page report to try to figure out why the numbers are so large. Recently two noted economists, William D. Nordhaus of Yale and Sir Partha Dasgupta of the University of Cambridge, have written critiques of the Stern report that try to solve this puzzle. The reports are available at http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/SternReviewD2.pdf and http://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/faculty/dasgupta/Stern.pdf.

The two critiques emphasize different but related aspects of the Stern Review's economic model. Mr. Nordhaus's major concern is with the Stern Review's choice of the "social rate of time discount," the rate used to compare the well-being of future generations to the well-being of those alive today. The choice of an appropriate social time discount rate has long been debated. Some very intelligent people have argued that giving future generations less weight than the current generation is "ethically indefensible." Other equally intelligent people have argued that weighting generations equally leads to paradoxical and even nonsensical results.

The Stern Review sides with those who believe in a low discount rate, arguing that the only ethical reason to discount future generations is that they might not be there at all - there could be some cataclysmic event like a comet hitting the earth that wipes out all life. The report assumes that the probability of extinction is 0.1 percent per year. For all intents and purposes, this implies a social rate of discount that is effectively zero, implying almost equal weight to all generations.

The report not only chooses to weigh all generations' welfare almost equally, it also makes an extreme choice when specifying the relationship between consumption and welfare. These choices together imply that a 1 percent reduction in consumption today is desirable if it leads to slightly more than 1 percent increase in the consumption of some future generation, even though, in the model, future generations will be much wealthier than the current generation.

Given these assumptions it is easy to see where the large numbers come from. Unchecked global warming will certainly make future generations worse off to some degree. If we add up these losses over all time using a zero social discount rate, we get a large sum: a dollar a year over a million years is a million dollars.

Mr. Nordhaus examines a model of climate change that is similar to the one used in the Stern Review but with a 3 percent social discount rate that slowly declines to 1 percent in 300 years rather than the 0.1 percent discount rate used in the Stern Review. In his model, the welfare of future generations is given less weight than the current generation's welfare. He finds that preventive measures like a tax on carbon emissions are certainly required. But they are of a much smaller magnitude than those recommended in the report. As Mr. Nordhaus says, "While the findings of such mainstream economic assessments may not satisfy the most ardent environmentalists, if followed they would go far beyond current global emissions reductions and would be a good first step on a journey of many miles."

So, should the social discount rate be 0.1 percent, as Sir Nicholas Stern, who led the study, would have it, or 3 percent as Mr. Nordhaus prefers? There is no definitive answer to this question because it is inherently an ethical judgment that requires comparing the well-being of different people: those alive today and those alive in 50 or 100 years. Still, we may at least ask for consistency in our decisions. Forget about global warming and consider the much simpler problem of economic growth. How much should we save today to bequeath to future generations if we really believed in a 0.1 percent social discount rate and the other assumptions built into the Stern model? The answer, according to Sir Partha's calculation, is that we should invest 97.5 percent of what we produce today to increase the standard of living of future generations.

Sir Partha's stripped-down model leaves out uncertainty, technological change and population growth, but even so, such a high savings rate is totally implausible. It is even more implausible given that future generations will be much richer than those now living. According to Mr. Nordhaus, the assumptions used in the Stern Review imply that per capita yearly consumption in 2200 will be $94,000 as compared with $7,000 today. So, is it really ethical to transfer wealth from someone making $7,000 a year to someone making $94,000 a year?

As these examples illustrate, the choice of an appropriate policy toward global warming depends heavily on how one weighs the costs and benefits it imposes on different generations. The Stern Review chose a particular way to do this, but many other choices could have been examined. Exploring the implications of alternative assumptions is likely to lead to better policy than making a single blanket recommendation. At least at this stage of our understanding, exploration beats exhortation.

Source

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is generally to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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